YMMV / Darkstalkers

The Games

• Americans Hate Tingle: Although the Darkstalkers series was a genuine hit in its homeland of Japan, with each of its 3 main games making the top 5 of its respective year's arcade income charts, it was never more than a Cult Classic internationally.
• Awesome Art: The game is extremely stylish, from the varying art style to the top-notch animations and spritework. Capcom really put their guns on it.
• Awesome Music: Gonna be trouble, Baby I'm a trouble man....
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Rather literally. Although this may be because the series remains at best a Cult Classic, and of course sex sells, Morrigan, Lilith and Felicia are the only people anyone seems to remember from the games. It's quite telling that in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the three Darkstalkers include Morrigan, Felicia and Hsien-Ko.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Sasquatch's whole story.
• Common Knowledge: It's usually believed that Morrigan sucks people's souls via kissing them to feed herself, and she does in fact drain Pyron in her ending in the first game. While she can drain souls, Morrigan does in fact feed from a special liquid that succubi in Darkstalkers can secrete from their bodies when they are excited, and Capcom has even confirmed that Morrigan hasn't killed any humans in her life. However, most people think that Morrigan just drains people for the sake of being a succubus, and every Darkstalkers media as well crossovers don't even mention the liquid, instead having her feed on souls.
• Contested Sequel: Vampire Savior remains the competitive standard to this day owing to the baffling decisions made with the arcade releases of Vampire Savior 2 and Vampire Hunter 2. To summarize:
  • All three games have incomplete rosters to some degree: the original omissions of Donovan, Pyron and Huitzil are brought back in both updates but Savior 2 removes Jon Talbain, Rikuo and Sasquatch while Hunter 2 removes all four newcomers from Savior 1 as if it were an Updated Re-release of Vampire Hunter on the rather different Savior engine. The latter means that the character select screen has a conspicuously empty slot, since it's only a recolor of Savior 1's.
  • Savior 2 and Hunter 2 released almost simultaneously and only a few months after the original Vampire Savior, which must've confused arcade owners and patrons in Japan and made either games' availability rather limited.
  • The system and balance changes between Savior and the updates are generally considered for the worse, particularly with regards to how the already contentious push block mechanic of Savior became somehow even more difficult/confusing than before.
• Cult Classic: Outside of Japan, the Darkstalkers series has never seen the mainstream popularity that Mortal Kombat, Tekken, or even its sister series Street Fighter has gotten. But partly thanks to continued exposure of the characters through the Capcom vs. series, it has a large, dedicated fanbase who loves its atypical characters and wishes that Capcom would continue the series.
• Designated Hero: Donovan: He's more than a little of a Knight Templar, and his vampire side takes him over in his ending. To clarify, his quotes in battle paint him as a Knight Templar, seeking out and killing other Darkstalkers, even the nice ones. Pitting him against Felicia, Morrigan, Lilith, Anakaris, Jon, Hsien-Ko, or the like can make him look a lot more like a Boomerang Bigot, especially considering most of the listed characters actually like, or in some cases, protect the humans of his world.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Lilith is very well-liked despite being a villain in the series. Mostly because she has a sympathetic backstory.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Anita. Many players wish to see the older and more cheerful self (as seen in Dee's story from Vampire Savior 2 and planned to be included in the third game) as a playable character in future games. She made, however, the jump to playable in some crossovers, such as Marvel Super Heroes and Marvel vs. Capcom, where she was a selectable Assist Character.
• Even Better Sequel: The first Darkstalker was a decent attempt for Capcom to try to delve into a new series with some new gimmicks like airblocking. The next game is when the franchise starts Growingthe Beard adding some very obvious features that makes it from the onset unique from Street Fighter. The third game Vampire Savior/Darkstalker 3 basically codified all the tropes and mechanics so associated with the Anime Fighter and to this day remains has a lot of hardcore fans on top of being one of the most viable 2D fighters in the competitive scene.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Demitri (with this character, one may also say "Evil is Cool and Sexy]]"). He is a malevolent vampire who wants to conquer the demon world and sees everyone but himself as inferior, still has his fair share of fans.
  • Jedah, who plays the "evil" part even more than Demitri.
• Fandom Rivalry: A one-sided variant with Street Fighter, as many Darkstalkers fans are incensed that the former keeps getting more and more promotion and games, while the latter is constantly screwed over and relegated to, if anything, appearances and cameos in crossover games. To put things in perspective, here's what was said at SDCC 2013 when Capcom announced that no new Darkstalkers games were planned...
  Matt Dalgren: Darkstalkers Resurrection did not perform as well as we would have liked to hope. You never know what the future may hold, but Street Fighter is definitely not dead. There is nothing Darkstalkers on the immediate horizon for sure.
• Fanon: Its commonly claimed that Word of God stated that a werewolf killed B.B.Hood's grandmother, and this sparked her hatred of monsters. In actuality this isn't found in any source and all that is stated is B.B.Hood visits her grandma's house occasionally. Her Beautiful Memory super move has her get teary-eyed over a vision of her Grandma before attacking, but the meaning of this move hasn't been explained in any official capacity.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With F-Zero due to both franchises regularly making crossover appearances in other games while being Cult Classics by themselves at best. Morrigan is often called "Capcom's Captain Falcon."
  • Also with Guilty Gear, a fast paced, colorful anime fighting game that is heavily inspired by Darkstalkers in terms of mechanics and style.
• Game-Breaker: In Vampire Savior, the Darkstalkers game still most played by the competitive fighting community, the uncontested best characters in the game are Lord Raptor, Sasquatch, and Q. Bee in that order.
  • Lord Raptor is far and away considered the best character in the game, having tools for just about every situation. He has a wide variety of normals for most any range and situation; he has multiple ways to approach the opponent between his air dash, his drill kicks, and his teleports; he has what is considered by many to be the best Guard Cancel in the game because it's one of the only moves in the game that causes an untechable knockdown; and just to add a cherry on top, his jumping light kick has some unblockable frames thanks to a bug in the move's programming. This unblockable is actually banned in many Japanese tournaments, but it's telling that even without his blatantly overpowered move he's still one of the most common characters to see at a high level. The only real weaknesses he has are his slightly-lower-than-average health pool and the fact that having so many potential options also makes him one of the hardest characters to really master.
  • Sasquatch may not be considered quite as good as Lord Raptor, but he's picked more often at a high level thanks to him also being one of the easiest characters to be effective with. Sasquatch hits like a truck and can be made deceptively fast, being one of three characters in the game with a hop dash that gives him access to very fast high/low mixups. And while he might not normally be that effective at far range due to his lack of air mobility options, he has one of the most obnoxious multi-purpose special moves in the game in the form of his ES Big Towers, which covers the whole ground in icicles the size of Sasquatch himself and lets him approach with ease.
  • Q. Bee boasts one of the game's most unique air approaches in the form of her particular air dash, because unlike every other air dash, hers tracks the opponent's position and angles accordingly. This means if done point blank, she can fly to the ground extremely fast and perform triangle jump shenanigans similar to characters like Magneto or Doctor Doom in the Marvel vs. Capcom series without having to worry about manually angling her dash. This alone gives her one of the game's best approach options as well as high/low mixup options in one move, only limited by your execution in air dashing. She also has multiple other attributes that make her a particularly pesky bug to fight like her ability to float in midair, good pokes, a good command grab, and a particularly low crouching animation that lets her duck further than any other character.
  • The Capcom Fighting Collection version of the first game gives us the ability to toggle Huitzil and Pyron on and off, and the two bosses show us why they aren't playable normally. Huizil's projectile in particular can easily juggle and chip away at the opponent's health with little room to attack.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: For many a year, fans have been clamoring to get Jon Talbain into one of the Vs. titles (it works for Americans, who view werewolves and Bruce Lee to be awesome things). Point in case: Ryota Niitsuma, the producer of Marvel vs. Capcom 3, notes that he wanted to add more characters from this series to the game, but couldn't due to time constraints. Jon would have been his pick.
• High-Tier Scrappy: Jon is widely derided by competitive players due to being easy to use and at least high-tier in every entry he's in, often resulting in him being a common pick to the point of oversaturation.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the Night Warriors OVA, Lord Raptor (voiced by Scott McNeil) has for a drummer a one-eyed monster that looks like a blue Suezo. McNeil would later go on to voice Suezo in the Monster Rancher anime.
  • David Kaye voiced Pyron in the Night Warriors OVA. Now he's voicing Jedah Doma in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.
  • A robot that crash landed on Earth somehow games amnesia and befriends a boy, sacrificing himself to save him and...wait a minute, are we talking Huitzil and Cecil or Hogarth and the Iron Giant?
• I Am Not Shazam: The Bishamon in Vampire Savior/Savior 2/Hunter 2 and one of the Bishamon in 3 (as noted on the Characters page) is not the man who was enslaved by the will of his armor, but the armor itself having gained its own sentience.
• Iconic Character, Forgotten Title: Morrigan and to a lesser extent Felicia, no thanks to the Vs. series. The mainstream knows they exist, but Darkstalkers remains a Cult Classic. Morrigan is also one of the most popular (if not the most popular) video game succubus characters on the Internet.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Felicia. She suffers constant discrimination, abuse, and misunderstanding throughout the game franchise and the spin-off series, but still manages to keeps her cheerful attitude and hopes of a better future.
  • Jon Talbain used to be a normal nobleman until one night he turned into a werewolf. From then on, he was treated as an outcast, even as he learned to control his beastly impulses due to Training from Hell. Children get along with him, but Jon still lives in fear of brutalizing them with his beast fury. Despite this, he never gives in to dispair and continues to fight for those he cares for, even if they despise him.
  • Victor. His story may even edge out Donovan's as the most tragic in the series. At first, he believes his deceased creator to be ignoring him for not being strong enough. Shortly after the jarring realization that the old man had actually passed on, his sister suddenly ceases to function, leaving him alone once more (which is even more heart-crushing in the text epilogue of Night Warriors). Eventually, he realizes that the only way to revive Emily is to give his own life, which he does without hesitation. Worst of all, he is ignorant of the fact that her body, being a "prototype" of sorts, will probably not be able to continuously generate electric "life force" and is thus likely to run out of power before long.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Pretty much the general public's only link to the series is through Morrigan's popularity in her appearances in Capcom vs. games, which is why she's upfront and center in Resurruction's cover. It was a good effort, but didn't work too well... Felicia also arguably qualifies.
  • Rather humorously, the Compilation Re-release Capcom Fighting Collection received far more attention when it was revealed that the entire Darkstalkers series (including the incredibly-obscure alternate versions of Vampire Hunter and Vampire Savior) would be part of its lineup, to the point where some fans made jokes about how Capcom included a bunch of extra games in their new Darkstalkers collection.
• Low-Tier Letdown: In Vampire Savior (he is considered much stronger in the first two games, which are slower-paced and less offensive), Anakaris is infamous for being incredibly handicapped and having no winning (and arguably no even) matchups. He intentionally lacks (or is extremely gimped in) many game systems universal to the rest of the cast: he has no normal throw, can't "Tech-Hit" (aka advancing guard / push block), his Guard Cancel is meter-only and infamously is punishable on hit, and he has all that combined with being very big and slow. This all comes together to him being much easier than any other character in the game to bully and pressure non-stop with him legitimately having no way out. Though he has many unique strengths (his own pressure game is exceptionally strong, and his normal attacks can do a decent job in ensuring the opponent can't get started on him) and is considered playable at a high level, he has possibly the smallest playerbase of the whole cast due to how high-risk and hard to learn he is to learn relative to the reward.
• Mainstream Obscurity: Has accrued a cult following over the years, but is solely known for Morrigan Aensland, the sexier-than-sex succubus who has appeared in more crossover games than her own. Good luck finding someone who can name any other characters besides maybe Lilith, her moe sister, Jedah, an insane Grim Reaper-styled demon who mutilates himself to attack people, or Felicia, a near-nude Cat Girl. Possibly Hsien-Ko as well due to her appearance in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. They probably won't know anything about the gameplay either. The series is Best Known for the Fanservice, and not much else.
• Memetic Loser: Demitri Maximoff is often mocked by fans for being completely disregarded and nearly forgotten despite being the intended protagonist and title character of the series. Many of his attributes are referenced or alluded to in other games (his theme being used for Morrigan's stage in Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000, his costume and special attacks appearing in Street Fighter V, the Midnight Blissed versions of characters making various cameo appearances) but it's very rare for Demitri himself to be playable or acknowledged. This is actually lampshaded by Morrigan and Jedah in Cross Edge, much to the chagrin of Demitri and his fans.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Yoshinori Ono's DARKSTALKERS ARE NOT DEAD announcement seems to be working its way up. In the case of MvC3 (with the possibility of an all Darkstalkers team of Morrigan, Felicia, and Hsien-Ko being defeated) and Resurrection's unfortunate commercial failure, this is sometimes twisted into DARKSTALKERS ARE DEAD.
  • For the M.U.G.E.N community, making different forms for characters who are hit by Demitri's Midnight Bliss.
• Moe: Felicia and Lilith. B.B. Hood too, if you can look past the more disturbing elements of her personality.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Morrigan's Darkness Illusion super was the first move to use the button press sequence (LP, LP, F, LK, HP) that is now associated with Akuma's Shun Goku Satsu.^note The move itself debuted with Akuma in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, which was released a few months before the first Darkstalkers game. The button command itself was later used for the move starting in Street Fighter Alpha.
  • Apparently the Shun Goku Satsu was even nicknamed "Goukiness Illusion" by some Japanese players at the time of its debut.
  • Despite what some may think, Dee, Donovan's evil form, was actually not something Capcom made just for the PS2 release. He was in fact an abandoned concept from the development of Vampire Savior. Producer Noritaka Funamizu specifically mentions this Demitri-headswap Donovan in the book All About Vampire Savior, and notes that he was "nearly finished."
• Once Original, Now Common:
  • The Darkstalkers series often comes across as "just another 90s fighting game" to those who first experience it now, likely because so many of the new things it brought to the table such as chain combos, guard cancels, air blocking, ES specials, improved animation, and a cast full of something other than the same old martial arts archetypes have now been copied by so many other fighters (including its own predecessor, Street Fighter).
  • Apparently even some American game reviewers in the 90s didn't notice several of the mechanical differences from Street Fighter, so to some extent Darkstalkers was underappreciated in its time, too.
  • Guilty Gear, released in 1998, is oftentimes considered the Trope Codifier of the "Anime Fighter"; Fighting games that put increased emphasis on more aggressive offensive (longer combos and faster charging of the Super Meters) and increased mobility (double jumps, air dashes, air blocking). Darkstalkers introduced these elements 4 years earlier, but ultimately got overshadowed in the popular zeitgeist due to the lack of new games.
• Polished Port: The Sega Saturn port of Vampire Savior is not only arcade perfect, it even brings back Donovan, Huitzil, and Pyron from Night Warriors, complete with their own single-player endings. The PlayStation EX Edition port, while not as good by comparison, includes all 18 characters as well, plus both upgrades (Savior 2 and Hunter 2).
• Presumed Flop: The series is often said to have been a perennial underperformer, with no new games since 1997 and Capcom's only interest in it being having its characters make guest appearances in crossover titles and the occasional compilation. And while not the Street Fighter II-level monster hit Capcom's management expected from the pedigree of its developers, the games did extremely well for themselves, with all of them ranking in Japan's top 5 arcade game coinage charts the year they were released and the first one in particular having sold between 42 to 48k arcade boards, an outstanding number for any arcade game. For comparison, the original Mortal Kombat (1992) sold 24k boards.
• The Scrappy:
  • Rikuo. It usually has absolutely nothing to do with the actual character or the way he plays, but simply because he's a fishman with transformation abilities. Not helped by the fact he was the eighth opponent (the last before Huitzil and Pyron) in the original game and thus one of the hardest.
    • Pat R. (creator of the Webcomic series How to Make a Sprite Comic in 8 Easy Bits) has this to say in his review of the series:
      "Apparently the last member of his disgusting aquatic race, Rikuo (Aulbath in Japan) desperately searches the world in hopes of finding a hideous mate so he can repropagate his loathsome species. Yes, I am biased."
    • His status as such is nodded to in the OVA, where he is utterly decimated by Pyron at the beginning of the 4th episode, complete with receiving a wound that causes blood to come gushing out of him before being consumed in an explosion. A silhouette shot of his flesh being ripped to shreds and his skeleton disintegrating into dust is then shown.
• Scrappy Mechanic: In Resurrection, the YouTube upload function, since it only uploads in 360p resolution. Exclusive to the 360 version, however, is the high probability that your replay's audio will desync and a portion of the match will be cut off. And in some cases, the game won't let you upload replays at all. The option is permanently grayed out even after you link your Gamertag to your YouTube account.
• Self-Fanservice: A sizable chunk of fanart is prone to upping the bust sizes of Morrigan (who is rather modestly sized in the majority of her official art) and sometimes other female characters.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Since the roster includes a vampire, a werewolf, a pastiche of Frankenstein's monster, a mummy, and a merman, this series can easily be considered an unofficial Universal Horror video game adaptation.
  • With its stylish yet cartoony presentation, fast gameplay and offbeat gothic characters, Skullgirls is considered by most Darkstalkers fans to do a pretty decent job at carrying on its legacy (as Capcom hasn't made an original Darkstalkers game since 1997).
• Stoic Woobie: Anita. Played straight in both accounts: According to her backstory, her parents were killed by a Darkstalker and the people from the orphanage where she stayed shunned her as a witch. To make things worse, the only person that actually cared for her (in this case Donovan) sacrificed his last remains of humanity to protect her.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Cecil's reaction to Huitzil/Phobos being defeated.
  • Anita's reaction to Donovan's Downer Ending in Night Warriors.
  • Lei-Lei/Hsien-Ko and Lin-Lin/Mei-Ling's Night Warriors ending.
  • Dee's ending in the Japan-exclusive Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection: After killing Jedah, the game proceeds as though Dee (an evil version of Donovan) is about to fight a young woman who is not named, but is, in truth, an older Anita. The game fades to white before the fight begins, and as the credits roll, Anita is shown at a graveyard, suggesting that she ended the suffering of the man who once saved her soul.
  • Anitas and Donovans relationship in the OVA is this. Anita is even more mentally gone than in the games, showing a clear hatred of humanity and signs of thinking like a Darkstalker. She even doubts the point of helping Donovan after he was gravely injured in his fight with Bishamon, because "humans are weak" and will all die anyway. It doesn't help that Donovan shows serious doubts about his ability to fight the Darkstalkers and keep his humanity also. If this is canon with Dees ending as mentioned above, it double as heartbreaking.
• That One Attack: Huitzil's "Confusioner", a super that fires a small, fast-moving projectile that, upon hit, essentially turns the opponent into a defenseless punching bag for several seconds. Even the most basic follow-ups can net nearly half a life bars worth of damage, and more advanced follow-up combos can turn it into a full touch of death. On top of that, it has extremely good frame data; it's quick enough to be combo'ed into from light and medium normals, and to be completely safe on block even at point blank range.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The third game in the series, Vampire Savior, received criticism from existing fans of the series at the time of its release. Complaints were made about many aspects of the game, including the changes to the system mechanics and movesets, the removal of characters from the previous games, and the addition of new characters who many saw as out of place.
• Too Cool to Live: The massive, Creepy Good Victor ends up Killed Off for Real after performing a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Ugly Cute: Sasquatch. He can be quite of a loveable dork despite his scary appearance. Just look at some of his poses and mannerisms.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Lilith gained a lot of fans who felt sorry for her, despite being The Dragon to Jedah. She doesn't really know what she's doing for him, simply carrying out his orders to bring powerful Darkstalkers in so he'd give her her body back. Luckily, in two endings, she does get exactly that.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Demitri is not exactly the most sympathetic character, but he was originally meant to be one of the heroes. To clarify, he seeks a powerful position in Makai, and is willing to kill and enslave anyone who gets in his way. Not really the most admirable of traits, and the fact that the woman he's targeting for this power is Morrigan didn't really endear him to many people. The fact that Morrigan seems to value humans more than he does might be a reason (one of them anyway) that she got more popular than him.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Despite the bright animation and lack of excessive blood, this series is not for children. The game has a huge amount of Fanservice, deep emotional stories, and brutal violence. It's actually a miracle that the series never got an "M" rating at all. Though to be fair, "M" rated games weren't popular yet when the series started out.
• The Woobie: Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling. Poor girls.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Lilith. Just take a look at her backstory. Played straight in her ending (Morrigan's ending, despite Lilith losing, offers a more satisfactory conclusion as Morrigan welcomes Lilith back into her body, resulting in a win-win situation for both of them: Morrigan's power gets exponentially multiplied (possibly reaching full level and Lilith's sense of existence is assured).

The American cartoon

• Badass Decay: Several of the Darkstalkers were already changed into weaker characters for the series, but every character would lose once an episode.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • This scene, as pointed out by Pan Pizza.
  • Jon Talbain's flashback in an episode: he reminisces fondly about a bakery... which suddenly explodes. End of flashback.
• Bile Fascination: Some people only see the cartoon to see how bad it is.
• Broken Base: Literally the only thing fans argue over is if the American cartoon is So Bad, It's Good or horrible. Of course, some people just say it's plain bad.
• Cant Unhear It: While the entire cast is doing their best with the material they were given, the one who stands out the most is Scott McNeil as Lord Raptor, giving him an Australian accent (as Scott himself is also Australian) and managing to make even the dialogue he's given feel very in-character. The fact that he was the only cast member who reprised this role for the OVA has made it so the Darkstalkers fandom accept him as the voice of Lord Raptor despite that he's never played the character in games (or that Raptor is not one of the few to still appear and be voiced in later years).
• Damsel Scrappy: Harry. He needs the heroic characters to rescue him all the time. He's not exactly redeemed by his lack of character and accidentally endangering the heroes every time.
• Designated Hero: Harry. Although he's not outright villainous, he's allegedly The Chosen One who'll save the world from Pyron and bring peace between humans and Darkstalkers. However, he spends all of his screen time complaining and needing rescue from the heroes while accidentally getting them into trouble.
• Ethnic Scrappy:
  • Morrigan is given a super thick Scottish accent that soon became well known as annoying.
  • The show's incarnation of Hsien-Ko sadly became this thanks to her exaggerated accent.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Several of the show's staff commented how they felt like this show was going to be the next best thing like Ghostbusters. The show proved very unpopular and didn't last 13 episodes.
  • The episode "Donovan's Bane" has Morrigan trick a drifter into coming to her arms so that she can attempt to drain him of his life energy via a kiss. Fortunately, Donovan attacks Morrigan before she can succeed, causing her to break the kiss while the drifter escapes with his life. The UDON comics, which depicts Morrigan as an even more malicious person, would have her trick nice men like a fisherman named Jack and an archaeologist so that she can kiss them as well. Unfortunately for them, nobody came to their aid before Morrigan drains them dry. In some ways, the cartoon's depiction of Morrigan would end up being a recurring thing in future adaptations.
• He Really Can Act: The voice acting is considered questionable at best and ridiculously Narmy at worst... with one exception. While Scott McNeil's skill as a voice actor isn't in question (especially if you've heard his various other roles), his performance as Lord Raptor is considered a highlight and one of the show's legitimately good points, to the point that he was brought back to voice the character again in the English dub of Night Warriors: Darkstalker's Revenge and is considered the fan-preferred English voice for Lord Raptor in any media the character appears in.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A bespectacled child wizard named Harry.
  • Pyron's ship A.I. is a dead ringer for 343 Guilty Spark, right down to the Smug Snake personality, and they even have extremely similar voices.
  • Within the franchise, the episode with the Crystal Skull has Demitri using it to banish his enemies to another dimension. Then Vampire Savior comes and gives us Jedah's Majigen ("Wicked Dimension"), where most of the cast are drawn to.
  • The "you are curiously attractive for a fishman" line is even funnier after The Shape of Water came out. This also applies for characters like Prince Sidon, Zed O'Brien and Abe Sapien. Seems the trend lately is that fishmen being attractive isn't such a curious thing anymore.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Lord Raptor's voice actor Scott McNeil being among one of the only highlights of the series becomes this since his performance earned him a Role Reprise in the much better anime OVA where Lord Raptor's popularity skyrocketed thanks to him playing the role more seriously.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Pyron, due to the fact that he tries to conquer Earth because he wants to earn his mother's respect.
  • Harry, who many of his haters classify as a Fake Ultimate Hero.
• Memetic Molester: Morrigan. The most evident scene is when she abducts Harry and tucks him into bed after caressing him.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Lord Raptor's Rap Song.
  • Rikuo is curiously attractive for a fishman: An oft-repeated descriptor used by male and female Darkstalkers alike to the point that Rikuo eventually has to tiredly lampshade it in the final episode.
  • Anakaris sure loves his PUDDING!
• Misaimed Fandom: The series was made for kids... despite being made from an adult video game series. Unfortunately, neither adults nor children got into the cartoon and it failed.
• Narm: This video summarizes it.
• No Yay: Anakaris develops a disturbing interest in Felicia after he brainwashes her into becoming his wife.
• The Scrappy:
  • Harry. He was not liked for being added as a Kid-Appeal Character in a franchise that was never made for kids to begin with.
  • Hairball, the Sasquatch/Big Foot's son is equally disliked for being an annoying Bratty Half-Pint that pisses off the other characters.
• So Bad, It's Good: It's to be expected when your cartoon adaptation is made by the same company responsible for such works as G.I. Joe Extreme and the cartoon adaptation of Street Fighter.
• Squick: Anakaris, a centuries-old, decaying mummy, brainwashes Felicia into becoming his wife and forces her to make out with him while his prisoners watch. It's as gross as it sounds.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Darkstalkers was never a series intended for children. But that didn't stop the Executive Meddling from removing all the Nightmare Fuel, the fanservice, the complex character stories, and altering the beautiful character designs to make the show family-friendly.
• Video Game Movies Suck: Well, video game cartoons suck. This cartoon was unfortunately one of the many failed attempts to make a show based on a popular videogame. ScrewAttack has listed it as one of the worst cartoons ever based on a videogame simply for making it unrecognizable to the source material entirely.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The mere fact that the series is an adaptation of such a raunchy game should speak for itself. Of course, this isn't inherently a bad thing.

Comic Books

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: During Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, Felicia is attacked by a witch named Majorette and her own catperson named Thomas, who should not exist due to the fact that Felicia's species is a One-Gender Race. Neither of them are from the games and are seen ever again in the comic or its sequel crossover with Street Fighter. Jon and Felicia even lampshade they have no idea who she is.
• Complete Monster: In Darkstalkers & Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, by Ken Siu-Chong, Pyron is a sadistic space deity who enjoys devouring planets to gain power, having done so to his own home planet. Noticing the young planet Earth, Pyron waits for it to ripen and grow before promising to return and eat it. Spending the next millennia feasting on populated planets, Pyron heads back to the populated Earth, deciding to fight Morrigan and Demitri for his own amusement before he tries to devour the world completely.
• Designated Hero: While the story does paint Morrigan in a sympathetic light and gives her some moments of sympathy like Belial's death, it falls flat towards fans due to her being depicted as a disgusting and evil monster who sees humans only as food and completely disregards their lives.
• Harsher in Hindsight: A man associated with the sea (a fisherman instead of a lighthouse keeper) let's a woman or royal descent and with supernatural abilities (a succubus instead of a denizen of Atlantis) stay at his home. If Morrigan were closer to her canon self, making her not interested in stealing Jack's soul, there's a chance this could have resulted in the two having a son, akin to the pre-Crisis origins of Aquaman before the New 52 and 2018 film reintroduced the concept.
• Moral Event Horizon: Morrigan's actions in the first issue, where she tricked a nice man into letting her stay at his place, attempt to seduce him into sleeping with her before losing patience and outright forced herself on him before leaving him a soulless corpse, make it clear that she's not the same likable young woman she is in the games.
• The Scrappy: Morrigan's villainous depiction in the comic is hated by Darkstalkers fans due to how out of character it is compared to her game counterpart. While the game version gets her nourishment from enjoyment and is actually rather friendly for a succubus, this version is an unrepentant murderer and rapist who shows zero empathy to anyone outside her father and two servants, and even then she goes behind their backs to snack on innocent human souls.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Big-Lipped Alligator Moment not withstanding, Majorette and Thomas were Darkstalkers unique to the UDON comics. Much like how the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) created its own animal characters for their take on a video game's world, this would have been a chance for UDON to create their own Darkstalkers, giving them their own backstories, abilities and connections to other Darkstalkers, and there was the possibility of the two developing a rivalry with Jon and Felicia. Unfortunately, they are exclusive to Jon and Felicia's story and are gone as soon as it ends.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Morrigan is technically the protagonist of the story as the comic mostly revolves around her. While the comic does show her relationship with her adopted father and her struggles to be the queen she is supposed to be, it's hard to root for her when she's depicted as much more evil and dangerous, especially when she drains human souls for the thrill of it. The fact she gets away with everything she does makes it worse.
• Uncertain Audience: The comic is based on a series of fighting games not very well known. Even then, its changes from the source material proved very unpopular, namely the depiction of Morrigan Aensland as a more villainous character. It does not help that Morrigan is the main character, even though she's committed murder of innocent people even when she had no need to.
• The Woobie: Jack, the fisherman from the first issue. He encountered a young woman named Ann who was homeless due to claiming to have lost her husband, so he let her stay in his place for the night. However, when she offers to sleep with him and he turns her down out of kindness, she reveals herself to be Morrigan Aensland, who is not as nice or fun in this comic and decides to go for the direct approach with him, consuming his soul and killing him. By morning, Jack is found as a lifeless husk with blood under his corpse and a look of utter horror on his face. All of this because he thought he was helping someone who needed a bit of human kindness. The kindest thing Morrigan does for him is keeping his soul inside her body, living in eternal bliss and pleasure. Even then, it was more to feed on his soul than anything else.

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